A Series of Normalcy
by Cupcake Heart
Summary: This will be a collection of drabbles, short scenes of everyday life for the Persona 3 crew. I'll post perhaps 3 per page, maybe more. We'll see!
1. Is This Really Normal?

**Author's Note**

I haven't played Persona 3 (or FES or P3P) in a little while so please bear with me if I remember a few things a bit oddly (like when and how it came out that Yuka's afraid of ghosts. I'm pretty sure everyone was there and it was in the lounge but I could be wrong.) Please also bear with my rather rusty writing as I haven't seriously written anything in ages. That said, I was (and still am) trying to work out a story. These are all random scenes that came to my mind that I decided to share while I figure out an actual story. Never know, I might take one of these and make a story out of them. Let me know what you think, constructive criticism is awesome.

* * *

Minako never understood Yukari's fear of ghosts.

When it had come out into the open, she'd said so too, in her typically tactless words-are-not-filtered-by-conscious-thought manner.

Junpei snickered and was promptly smacked upside the head by Akihiko, who gave him a bit of a miffed look. The grin never slid off Junpei's face through the whole process.

Yukari blinked at Minako, "Why? What don't you understand?"

Minako huffed, "We see the dark hour every night, or at least every night we're not too busy being unconscious. Blood and eery green light everywhere. We fight shadows, which are like some weird mix of oogie boogies and a fancy dress party. We summon personas that look.. really, really weird. I mean, you remember Mara, don't you?"

There was a collective shudder. It was safe to assume not a single person in the room would ever forget Mara.

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Minako darted around the kitchen, randomly flinging cupboard doors open and rummaging through them. She pulled out different items that almost seemed to have nothing to do with each other whatsoever, the entire time filling the air with chatter. He caught some of it, enough to know that after all was said and done, they were supposed to be having ice cream. If it came out right. He wasn't really sure how that would happen, but as he watched her nearly crawl into the refrigerator to scoop out some milk and eggs, he figured she knew what she was doing.

Everything assembled, Minako began dictating the various steps of the process. She laid out two different plastic bags, explaining that the smaller one would have the soon-to-be ice cream in it, and the bigger bag would hold the salt.

He blinked, "Salt?"

Minako nodded, "Yep, just make sure you use table salt, and not road salt like Fuuka did. That was kinda gross."

He winced.

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No one was sure how she did it. Minako was constantly on the move, a blur of brown hair and gray uniform, there for a few minutes, a wave, a smile and then she was gone again. Her own dorm mates had to call her on her cell phone to get any real time with her apart from their Tartarus missions. It was oddly like living with an idol.

Today was like any other. They'd all been home ten minutes or so when she came in last, grabbed some snacks, and flew out the door, leaving only a rapidly babbled explanation of where she was going and a faint air of confusion behind her. Junpei was the first to speak up.

"Hehe, wonder where she's always off to in such a rush. You'd think she was hiding a boyfriend somewhere!"

Akihiko, Ken and Shinji all glared at him. He ducked his head slightly and shrugged, "Well, it's possible!"

Minako, who had been happily chatting away with Bunkichi and Mitsuko, sneezed.


	2. In Which Minako is Weird

**Author's Note** These are longer because I got back in the groove, I think. Hope you enjoy! I'm sure you've noticed but my Minako is a bit different. She blurts out the first thing on her mind, is very energetic and decently charismatic. She gets by as the leader because of a basic grasp of tactics and a mother bear type determination that no one shall harm those she cares about. And a slight martyr complex. She's also average at school. She might have a screw loose, but can ya blame her? :D

* * *

Minako sat in the student council room and listened to the president give yet another speech about how important it was for all of them to set good examples for the student body. How mandatory it was to help these, as he implied, idiotic and deplorable souls find their way to the golden light of functional productivity.

It was a nice thought, to be fair, but she'd just slogged through ten (or more?) floors of Tartarus last night cracking skulls with her naginata, and she was getting a bit dozy.

She wondered, briefly, what he would do if she told him the truth about why she was here. If she stood up and declared, in front of all the members of the equally dozy audience, that people in a room only she could see had declared that she must form social bonds in order to strengthen the parts of her mind that chose to appear as something that resembled a particularly demented showing of Cirque du Soleil.

That she was here in order to gain more ground in the link that she'd formed with him so that she might slay equally strange looking creatures that only existed within an hour no one in the room knew about.

It was an enticing thought for a moment or two. She could practically see his jaw drop in disbelief. It would likely be enough to rouse her fellow students into blinking at her and wondering what they'd missed that had gotten her so riled up.

Of course then he would probably make a little call on his cell phone, and then very friendly men in white jackets would come to escort her to a very pretty and very soft white room. It would be a different sort of velvet room, and it would have no good-looking butler in it.

She raised her hand and proposed that something be done about all the chewed up gum plastered in the water fountains before she fixed the problem herself with a chisel.

The other students nodded in agreement and wondered at how such a pretty girl managed to be so weird.

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Shinji was in the kitchen making pancakes when he reached for his fruit knife, intending to chop up some strawberries for a topping, and remembered he'd loaned it to Minako. That had been.. half a week ago? He swore softly. He wasn't sure why he'd lended it to her, but he was pretty sure she'd forgotten all about it by now.

Akihiko poked his head in, having heard his bout of irritation.

"What did those strawberries do to you?"

He grunted, "Nothing. Minako borrowed my fruit knife and must have forgotten all about it. Dammit, I could have used it, too."

Akihiko tilted his head and thought a moment. "She got some protein powder from me a while back, too. At the time I thought she was training and needed a boost. Maybe she's got some secret project up her sleeve?"

Shinji snorted, "She'd do something like that. How the hell did she end up the leader, anyway? Did you all draw names out of a hat?"

Before Akihiko could reply, Fuuka, who'd heard their conversation while visiting Koromaru, poked her head in the doorway as well.

"She borrowed some flowers from me, too. I thought she was just decorating something."

The two men looked at her, and then each other.

Aigis trotted by, gave them all a brief glance, and as she continued on, said, "Minako also acquired some lubricating oil from me. I do not know what it was intended for, but she told me it was imperative that she receive it. I did not question her motives."

They all looked at each other again as the little metallic taps of Aigis's feet faded away up the stairs.

Shinji expressed their thoughts in his usual eloquent fashion, "What the hell?"

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Minako was fiddling with her laptop in her room one day, searching for music as she usually did when she wasn't killing things, psych 101'ing people or sleeping, when she got an idea. It was probably a bad idea, in fact she was pretty positive it was a bad idea. But it might be entertaining.

She quickly copied one of her programs onto a dvd, and raced out the door and down to Aigis's room. Later, Fuuka heard sounds of arguing from Aigis's room. She peeked her head in the door and asked what the problem was.

Minako pouted, "I just want to install this in Aigis… Ikutsuki-san says it'd be fine, but Aigis is being a party-pooper."

Aigis gave her A Look, "I do not possess the facilities to defecate and would not do so upon a festive gathering."

Fuuka walked over and looked at the DVD Minako was waving around.

"What do you want to install on her?"

Ikutsuki grinned, "Minako-san found a program that can help Aigis sing! What was it called again?"

Minako handed the DVD to Fuuka, "It's called M-loid. You just feed words into it and it sings for you."

Aigis shook her head, "This will not improve my combat capabilities. I do not see it as a positive addition to my abilities."

Fuuka smiled apologetically, "Well, she does have the final say.. sorry, Minako. It could have been… interesting?"

Minako's shoulders slumped, and she sighed in defeat.


	3. Junpei Forever

**Author's Note** Thanks for the reviews, guys! I'm really glad people are taking the time to read these scribblings of mine and then give feedback. I'm really not sure why both of these involve Junpei. I'm a huge fan of his, so it's not completely out of the blue. It really wasn't planned, though. Seriously.

* * *

Junpei really wondered about Minako sometimes. She slept through nearly every class and still managed to make decent grades. The little time she spent in the dorm was filled with talking or baking or music of some form. He was positive she never studied, or if she did, she did it with a secrecy that ninjas would envy.

He did all this himself (minus the music and baking) and.. well look where he was! His grades were so low they almost fell off the chart and through the floor at times.

Finally, during one of their ramen marathons (he was winning, he noted with pride), he popped the question.

"Mina-tan? How do you manage to slack off so much and not completely fail? Seriously, you gotta tell me. Did you get some kinda vision? Did some spirit visit you and tell you the secret of slacking?"

She thought of Pharos for a moment, but figured bringing up her nightly prison-boy visitor would probably freak him out.

Minako grinned, "I'm just that good?"

Junpei smirked, "I'm not fooled. Come on, dish!"

Minako swirled her noodles with her chopsticks for a minute, then took a bite, slowly savoring both the flavor and his growing impatience. Then she spoke up.

"Minidisc recorder."

He blinked, "What, really? Geeze, I should have thought of that. Wait, when do you listen to them?"

She gave him a look, "When do you think? When we're fighting in Tartarus. Sometimes when I'm sleeping, too. They say that works."

Junpei returned the look, "Wait… what? When we're fighting in Tartarus… you're listening to lectures? Really?"

She nods, "Yep. Well, just during routine explorations. I keep it quiet enough that I can hear everything fine. The math ones really help me fight better, though. That really good move I did last night? That was thanks to long division."

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Minako looks down at the deck of tarot cards in her hands and sighs. She shuffles through them, noting the faint markings on the back, which appear to show ranks of some sort.

The whole system was odd, really. She would be talking to someone when all of a sudden she'd hear shattering glass and a deep mysterious voice (that somehow sounded like a soft version of that guy that always does movie trailers). Then a new tarot card would appear in her pocket. Well, either a new one would appear or the one she already had would gain a new mark on the back.

She wondered how many marks she'd need to finish a card, if that was even possible. Sheesh, she was thinking about them as if they were bingo cards and filling up a line would get her a basket or a candle.

Then she thought of the first time she'd really noticed that happen and grinned. She'd been talking to Junpei after class when she'd heard the glass shatter, and she'd whipped her head around, trying to figure out what punk kid had broke a window. Then the deep voice had intoned and she'd frozen like a statue. Everyone in the room had stared at her, thinking that either she'd lost her mind or was about to have a seizure.

When she'd noticed them all looking at her, she'd shuffled her feet and rubbed the back of her head nervously.

"Uhhh, I thought I heard something. Go back to.. whatever you were doing. Right now."

This earned her a few more looks.

She scowled slightly, "You're gonna get behind on your.. stuff-doing!" She made a shooing gesture.

A few more. Then it was collectively decided that the new girl warranted a good gossip session, so people began to filter out of the room, softly chattering to each other.

She turned back to Junpei, who was also giving her an appraising look. She shrugged, "Ehhhh, sorry, nerves. I'm usually a lot saner than this."

He'd shrugged too, "Nah, it's cool. It's your first week."

At least they'd all forgotten about it, or been polite enough not to bring it up. As she reflected further, she considered that at least she really only had to be a good friend to them. That it wasn't required that she actually get deeply involved with anyone. Wow, would that have made things complicated.

Elsewhere, a blue-haired teenager ripped his hair out as yet another feminine social link reversed for the third time.

(A/N: Yes, this happened all the time my first playthrough. Chihiro and Yuko stayed pissed off at me. Minato was not a happy camper.)


End file.
